Do You Have Loopholes? The Importance of Surveillance Detection

This article was originally posted in the November 2015 ISDA Member Newsletter. Considering a recent Fox News broadcast entitled – “Al Qaeda magazine calls for targeting American business leaders” we are making available the November newsletter titled “Do you have Loopholes”.

Actually the Fox broadcast is referring to Issue 14 of Inspire, which is not the latest. The newsletter title was taken from an article which appeared in Issue 14 of Inspire magazine, which the publisher describes as, “the magazine for the true believer”.

We (ISDA) have written about Inspire Magazine in the past. It is an English language online magazine reportedly published by the organization al-Qaeda.

Issue 14 is of special interest to the corporate community because it includes an article titled “Assassination Operations.”

As with Carlos Marighella in the past the article discusses:

Selecting a target, Where and when to conduct the attack, and how to conduct the attack. Also of special interest, methods of infiltrating a building’s outer security, and assassination at a workplace.

We found one comment from the Inspire article, especially interesting, and disturbing:

“You should bear in mind that every target has a security loophole, however

much the security precaution he takes.”

The question: Do you have loopholes?

Also,in the same issue (Issue 14) there is another article, “Assassination Field Tactics.” This is the article that Fox covers in their broadcast. The article presents a list of potential targets, mostly businessman. There are targets listed whose safety and security are the responsibility of some of our ISDA members.

The latest Inspire Magazine (Issue 15), takes it all to another level and goes into great detail on “How to conduct a home assassination”. The publication supplies a detailed outline of how to conduct surveillance of the targets home. Also a detailed “how to” for car bombs.

In our opinion, these articles point out the importance of surveillance detection, as we have pointed out in many articles and posts.

In many scenarios, surveillance detection is not only the best protection, it may be the only protection.

The International Security Driver Association (ISDA) serves the Protective Services community. ISDA’s mission is to support an international forum of protective service providers who share knowledge for the purpose of enhancing the profession.

The most common question we at ISDA get asked is, “Is ISDA for Security Drivers and Secure Transportation Providers only?” The answer is a big NO. ISDA is a valuable resource for all practitioners working in the protection profession. Members of ISDA represent all facets and levels of the protective services profession as an example.